In which the pond offers a Baker's dozen from The Times before turning to Polonius's writers' festival prattle...

 

The pond admits to overdoing it yesterday. 

It was a tougher climb than doing a dozen or or so "Ned" Everests...

And yet there was plenty more climbing that could have been done.

Once the hive mind gets into one of its monomaniacal rages, there's no respite.

As well as cackling E-Claire (always be stealing), grating garrulous Gemma was also on the case...

If you spoke up on Gaza but are silent on Iran, you’re a fraud
As thousands are slaughtered in Iran’s brutal crackdown, the silence from Western governments and feminists who had so much to say about Gaza is deafening.
By Gemma Tognini

Actually grating Gemma might have done us all a favour by talking about Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and his award-winning film It Was Just an Accident.

The pond has watched all of Panahi's low budget guerrilla outings and they stick in the mind ...

...All Panahi's films are banned in his home country, with the Iranian leadership accusing him of "propaganda against the system", because his often darkly comic, always socially conscious filmmaking challenges the status quo.
Enduring house arrest and even going to prison in 2010 for his art, Panahi refuses to back down. In December 2025, he was tried in absentia for "propaganda activities" and now faces a year in prison and the resumption of his travel ban.
While imprisoned, Panahi was brutally interrogated while blindfolded. He's poured this traumatic experience into the riveting screenplay of It Was Just an Accident.
"When you are interrogated, blindfolded, your sense of hearing sharpens," Panahi explains.
"You become so sensitive to the sound of the person behind you, and you get curious about who they are. How old is he? How tall?"
The film features a group of similarly persecuted people, including mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), photographer, Shiva (Mariam Afshari) and a newly married couple, Goli and Ali (Hadis Pakbaten and Majid Panahi), who form an unlikely band of vigilantes. (ABC)

Well yes, why not celebrate a triumph snatched from the jaws of the malignant Mad Mullahs?

Truth to tell, the last thing the world needs is the Australian Zionist Daily News doing the same thing to Palestinians attempting to draw attention to the ongoing Gaza genocide and the endless ethnic cleansing, but here we are with the lizard Oz editorialist...

Groupthink is not free speech
The next few weeks are not the time for tirades against Israel
The Adelaide Writers Week meltdown isn’t a victory for free speech but a case study in ideology trumping judgment, exposing how far the cultural elite is from the national mood after Bondi.

It gets the pond every time ... whenever the reptiles blather about groupthink, the pond realises it's projection ... because every day is groupthink day in the hive mind. 

Whenever they carry on about cultural 'leets, the pond is reminded how they nestle in the 'leet bosoms of the filthy rich Murdochians.

But the pond knew what this also meant. 

The pond's Sunday favourite, prattling Polonius, would also go there, not least because he loathes all writers' festivals, because of the way they disrespect him, one of Australia's most astonishing writers, at least if you're astonished by tedious pedantry.

Before going there, please allow the pond a few Tootles, but where to go?

Nah, not old Nick ...

Everyone needs an Iced VoVo and a cuppa: what hate-laws debate tells us
If we can’t do 90:10 politics, no hate law will deliver the cohesion all sides claim to want.
By Nick Dyrenfurth

The pond would rather do in the liver with a Bex, a cup of tea and a nice lie down than go there.

And the pond wasn't going to go with the disgraced putz Pezzullo, still seeking his redemption via the reptiles ...

The warning signs of impending violence were there long before Bondi Beach
‘Kill the Jews’ echoed at the Opera House in October 2023. The terrorism threat level was raised to ‘probable’ in August 2024. Iranian agents directed attacks against Jewish Australians. Yet when asked if he’d imagined such an attack, the Prime Minister said no.
By Mike Pezzullo

The lizard Oz hive mind is always a gravy train for adept grifters and snake oil salesmen ...

Nor could the pond visit Planet Janet above the Faraway Tree ...

The airline that made me fall back in love with Qantas
Oh Air Canada, what a long dreary trip it’s been. Cracker rationing. Vanishing luggage. Cabin crew who wouldn’t know a smile if it boarded in first class. After 14 hours in business class that felt more like steerage, I’ve learnt an expensive lesson: never take Qantas for granted.
By Janet Albrechtsen

Elbows up Canada, and here's a tip. 

If you spot Dame Slap roaming wild-eyed in the street, likely without her celebratory MAGA cap on (she's dumb, but not that dumb), fix eyes on a bottle of maple syrup or stare off into the distance.

Even King Donald says you're on the right track ...

Trump says Canada should do trade deals with China

President Trump said Friday that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney should be making a trade deal with China, an economic U.S. adversary the president has been going after during his second term.
“That’s OK. That’s what he should be doing. I mean, it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that,” Trump told reporters in response to a question about what he thought of Canada and China announcing a trade deal between the two countries.

Just think of all those cheap EVs that the silly climate change inducing Yanks won't have.

And maybe when Dame Slap tips her filthy Murdochian paycheck into the Canadian economy, it might just help tip the balance.

With all those contenders ruled out, the pond hates to go there again, into the land of King Donald, but there must be room for a Baker's dozen..

Sure it was a four minute trawl over the same ground as that covered by the bromancer and jittery Joe yesterday, but you need at least three pundits to construct a camel.

At least he's an import, and how fitting is that for a foreign owned corporation very canny about paying taxes in Australia:

The header: Does Donald the Lame Duck await Trump?; The second year of second terms has tripped up many presidents – there are four challenges the 47th must overcome.

The caption: There are signs that Donald Trump’s vice-like grip on the Republican Party is slipping. Picture: AFP

This Baker sounded gloomy, as if elbows deep in lumpy King Donald dough:

The second year of a second term has typically been the most perilous for an American president in the modern era. Richard Nixon was forced from office in 1974; Ronald Reagan was undone by the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986; in 1998 the world learnt the name Monica Lewinsky, and Bill Clinton’s history was forever changed. George W. Bush’s presidency sank irretrievably in 2006 as Iraq descended into full-blown civil war.
The second year of Donald Trump’s second term starts next week. We have seen enough over his career to know the old rules don’t apply. In the past 12 months he has overturned the political order at home and abroad. In just the first few days of 2026 he has already shown – from Venezuela to Greenland and Iran, from the streets of Minneapolis to the halls of the Federal Reserve – that he intends to double down on his second American Revolution.

The reptiles seized the chance to throw in AV distractions: US President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell the protests in Minnesota. The Insurrection Act authorises the president to deploy military forces within the US to suppress rebellion, domestic violence, or to enforce the law. The protest in Minnesota escalated after an ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis. Since Good’s death, a second non-fatal shooting has occurred in Minneapolis against a man wielding a shovel. The president also labelled the politicians of Minnesota “corrupt”, claiming they “don’t obey the law”.

The pond freely admits it overdid the 'toons yesterday, and might well make the same mistake again, because it's a sure way to cure a hangover ...

The bromancer might well have been startled by the tone:

Given his success in disdaining the conventions of US politics, only a fool would bet they would now apply to him. And yet there are signs that all the conditions of his political mortality are asserting themselves.
His approval rating is near his lowest since he first took office in 2017. His vice-like grip on the Republican Party, achieved through the sheer force of personality and his cult-like following among supporters and the fear they strike into fellow Republicans, is slipping. The Supreme Court, until recently relatively pliant in its oversight of his various executive power grabs, has recently shown signs of resistance.
While no one thinks the man who turns 80 this year is close to following his predecessor, Joe Biden, into rambling frailty, he is starting to display evidence of physical and mental deterioration. He faces the inevitable constraint on all second-term presidents imposed by the 22nd Amendment that limits incumbents to two terms: the looming end of his presidential rope. It seems the oldest of Washington cliches is beckoning with nominative aptness: Donald the Lame Duck.
But the tumultuous year ahead is shaping up to be a struggle between two laws of physics: momentum and gravity. Will Trump and his MAGA allies be able to maintain the pace of radical change so his new order emerges before the laws of political gravity reassert themselves?

The reptiles followed up with a sublime AV distraction, blessed with a sublimely out of date caption: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado met with President Trump at the White House, where she offered him her Nobel Peace Prize, but did not confirm if he accepted it.

Did not confirm if he accepted it?

Oh come on, there was a great exchange of swag ...

The hapless Baker carried on his brooding:

Four factors threaten Trump’s presidency.
The first is policy; specifically the two policies most responsible for his victory in 2024: immigration and the economy. Trump has had unparalleled success in curbing illegal immigration, as voters wanted him to do. But that very success means the focus of public attention has shifted from border protection to the removal of the millions of immigrants here illegally. Polling shows voters are increasingly uneasy at the spectacle of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on the streets of cities, bundling brown-skinned people into unmarked vehicles. The killing last week of Renee Good, who was protesting at the scene of such a raid in Minneapolis, has shocked Americans. Trump’s support among Latino voters especially – crucial to his 2024 victory – is cratering.
While economic growth remains strong, voters are concerned about “affordability”. Inflation soared under Biden, and Trump promised to bring down prices. But while the inflation rate has indeed fallen, prices continue to rise. The president’s apparent insouciance – he describes concerns over affordability as a Democratic “con job” – adds insult to injury.
Unease about his policies translates into weakening public support. Trump’s approval rating stands just above 40 per cent, similar to that of his two two-term predecessors, but low enough to signal a big political setback for Republicans in the crucial midterm elections in November.
This sets the conditions for the third and most important downgrade in Trump’s political authority: a widening crack-up in the MAGA coalition and the first real evidence of Republicans standing up to him. It began last year with Jeffrey Epstein and fury over Trump’s failure to deliver on the promised vast conspiracy imagined by the MAGA right. But it has steadily escalated.

The reptiles slipped in a distracting prof, Deakin University Islamic Politics Professor Greg Barton analyses US President Donald Trump’s patterns in the last 12 months to predict the President’s next moves concerning Iran. “His pattern these last 12 months is sort of quick, decisive actions that are sort of largely air-based, so no boots on the ground,” Dr Barton told Sky News host Steve Price. “Venezuela was exceptional.”

Be fair, it's worked out tremendously well thus far ...

This Baker still sounded as flat as a soufflé or clafoutis that fails to rise ...

In the past month growing numbers of Republicans have put their heads above the parapet: over his plans for redistricting in key states, and over Venezuela and threats to Greenland. Last weekend his justice department announced a criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve (the politically independent US central bank) over alleged cost overruns. Trump has been furious with Powell for not cutting interest rates fast enough and this latest intervention was condemned by a succession of Republican senators.
The last challenge is personal: Trump’s own physical and mental health. While the man’s personal foibles have long been central to his character, there are some in Washington who think they detect a clear age-related decline in his cognitive capacities.
Policy failures, electoral jeopardy, internal party dissent, the challenges of age; none of these are new for a second-term president. They represent vectors of political gravity that would doom most leaders. But you don’t have to like him to know that Trump is not like any previous president.
We can expect more tension between the conventional and radical realities. Trump seems increasingly intent on doing things that in normal circumstances would consign him and his party to oblivion. Polling shows large majorities of Americans don’t want him to invade Greenland, take over the Federal Reserve or fill city streets with paramilitary units. But his calculation seems to be from the classic revolutionary mindset: establishing the new reality creates its own authority. As the once unthinkable becomes routine, the new order acquires its own legitimacy. This will be the defining clash of the age.
The Times

Take heart, it's all working out tremendously well ...

And so, after giving correspondents a chance to flee with that 'toon parade, on with the most tedious chore of the day ...

The header: Diversity of views never occurred on Louise Adler’s watch as Adelaide Writers Week director; Louise Adler’s defence is revealed as plain delulu, given the pile of evidence pointing to how Adelaide Writers Week functions have been leftist stacks under her watch.

The caption: Louise Adler appearing on 7.30 following her resignation from Adelaide Writers' Week. Picture: ABC

Yes, he went there, as the pond predicted and expected, and the pompous pedant was full of the worst kind of prattle ...what with the withered old wretch, a veritable Ebenezer more at home in Kidnapped pretending that he was with it, he was with vulgar youff ...

When Louise Adler appeared on ABC TV’s 7.30 on Tuesday, she certainly threw the switch to delusional – or delulu in modern-day slang. 

Oh come on, it would have been much more in the Polonial spirit to talk of argot. Or maybe not. In his cantish way, Polonius doesn't have much time for the perfidious French.

As usual, it was the ABC that got Polonius going:

The former director of the Adelaide Festival’s Adelaide Writers Week was interviewed by Michael Rowland about the decision to cancel the 2026 AWW and her choice to step down as its director.
As is well known, Adler invited controversial Macquarie University academic and writer Randa Abdel-Fattah to this year’s AWW. The invitation was withdrawn by the festival board, some of whose members resigned when the majority decision was made.
Eventually all independent board members resigned and a new board was chosen by the South Australian government.
Attention had been drawn to some of Abdel-Fattah’s social media posts, which included messages such as “If you are a Zionist, you have no claim or right to cultural safety”. The definition of a Zionist is someone who believes in the establishment of a Jewish state in the ancestral lands of the Jewish people. Namely, Israel.

Inevitably Polonius was going to go the full Morry, what with this still already having done the reptile rounds ... Publisher Morry Schwartz, centre, accused former Adelaide Writers Week director Louise Adler, left, of deliberately ‘wounding’ the festival by programming controversial academic Randa Abdel-Fattah.

Carry on Morrying ...

In the wake of the Bondi Beach terrorist massacre aimed at the Jewish community, it is understandable why some members of the festival board initially believed that this was not the time for platforming a speaker who has written that Zionists (Jews and gentiles alike) have no claim or right to cultural safety.
Adler, who is Jewish, is an avowed critic of contemporary Israel. Since she took up the position of AWW director in 2023, she has provided speaking opportunities to opponents of Israel (including the occasional Jew). In other words, there has been scant viewpoint diversity in the program on the Middle East, among other issues.
Adler’s decision was supported by 180 speakers who were scheduled to appear at the 2026 AWW and withdrew before the event was junked, including Australians such as Helen Garner, Jane Caro, Peter FitzSimons, John Lyons and so on. You get the picture. They, along with Adler, maintained that their gesture was a statement in support of freedom of expression in a democratic society. But was it?
Adler defended her position on 7.30 by accusing the Adelaide Festival board’s decision as an act of “cultural vandalism” that had been brought about by “the pro-Israel lobby”. She asserted that Abdel-Fattah had not been invited to the AWW “because of her social media feed” and that, in any event, “they’re certainly deleted”. A convenient cop-out, don’t you think?

Inevitably the reptiles dug into the dirt ...A 2023 social media post by Ms Abdel-Fattah.

Never mind, Polonius has always been offended by the way that writers's festivals have ignored his genius, and it was payback time...

But there was more. Adler went on to claim that “this is a moment where freedom of expression matters and that’s what’s at stake here”. What absolute tosh. Adler’s AWW functions have been essentially leftist stacks – as I documented in these pages on February 25, 2023, and March 22, 2025. The 2024 and planned 2026 events were no different. In a cover story for The Spectator Australia in April 2011, I defined writers festivals as occasions when “a group of leftists invite their leftist friends to perform before an audience primarily made up of inner-city leftist luvvies, at the taxpayer’s expense”.
In recent times, the most egregious examples of writers festivals as leftist stacks have been at the Sydney Writers Festival and the AWW. But the overwhelming majority reflect the Sydney and Adelaide events. If freedom of expression really mattered to Adler, she would provide a diversity of views – on Israel, Gaza and more besides. But this never occurred on her watch.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with a couple of familiar faces guaranteed to get the hive mind buzzing ...Peter FitzSimons withdrew before the event was junked … as did Jane Caro.

(Tip to reptile graphics department. Always pick snaps that demean and ridicule, or look grim).

Could it get any worse?

Of course it could. See how Polonius invites Lord Downer and his spawn to the feast:

Writing in Adelaide’s The Advertiser on January 11, Adelaide-based Nicky Downer (an arts administrator of long standing) and Alexander Downer (the former Australian foreign minister) described the AWW as “a conservative-free zone” devoid of “viewpoint diversity”. A bit like the ABC. The Downers wrote that, when donating to the AWW in 2024, they asked Adler “about the lack of representation of more liberal/conservative views” in the program. Adler responded “that when she did ask someone from the right, they would invariably decline her invitation”, they wrote.
The Downers added: “Another (Adler) excuse was that people on the right just don’t write books; we suggested a few names, but when it came to settling the program, none were featured.” Adler’s excuse is simply false; political conservatives do write books.

Implicit in that? 

Polonius writes books too, but when have they given the old codger a fair crack at the sauce bottle, but do carry on ...

Morry Schwartz, publisher of The Saturday Paper and Quarterly Essay, is no conservative.

Say what? He might purport to be a leftie but his Zionism has caused something of a fuss ...

Journalists urge 'improved' coverage of Israel-Hamas war in open letter ...

And then ...

Morry Schwartz resigns as chair of Schwartz Media, says Gaza coverage not a factor ...

And then ... as already noted by the pond, Morry's an extreme Zionist, out, loud and proud, an enthusiastic devotee of the killing fields:

At this point the reptiles flung in a distracting post to bolster the Polonial cause  ...A 2024 social media post by Ms Abdel-Fattah.

Note that Abel-Fattah references "cultural safety".

Is that any more problematic than the cultural abuse offered each day by the Australian Daily Zionist News? Which offers a safe space for many reptiles to espouse their ethnic cleansing Zionist ideology?

Polonis followed with more Morry ...

He blames Adler for the disaster that has befallen AWW.
In a letter to The Australian on January 13 Schwartz wrote: “Adler knew well that including Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah … would endanger the institution. But it mattered nil to her – her obsessive cause is more important to her than our precious 66-year-old writers’ festival.”

Sydney business figure and arts aficionado Tony Berg (who was a member of the festival board) wrote to The Australian on January 15 in the following terms: “I am now utterly astonished at Louise Adler’s statement in her resignation letter in support of free speech. I am likewise surprised by Randa Abdel-Fattah’s invocation of free speech and her outrage at being ‘cancelled’. They both exhibit hypocrisy in defending free speech for some, when I observed them both to stridently oppose free speech during my time on the board.”

More on that in a moment ... first the pond has to get two snaps out of the way ...Thomas Friedman … deplatformed...Tony Berg … ‘utterly astonished’.

Polonius then went full Friedman ...

Berg reported that Adler and Abdel-Fattah succeeded in having New York Times columnist Tom Friedman deplatformed with respect to the 2024 AWW. This has not been denied.

This should give an idea of how incestuous the hive mind is, because that Polonial link didn't lead to Friedman, it led to this, as a way of keeping docile minds inside the hive ...

Now in actual fact - Polonius has rarely been troubled by the facts of a matter - there have been denials of a kind. 

Per the Graudian ...

...Adler responded to Berg’s allegations by accusing the former board member of breaching board confidentiality.
“I consider discussions of the board table to be confidential,” she said in a prepared statement.
“I’m rather surprised that a former CEO of Macquarie Bank has breached those confidences. It’s indicative of the way the former board operated, and I believe will make for a rich case study for future management students.”
Abdel-Fattah disputed Berg’s claims that she, along with Adler, led the charge to cancel Friedman.
“I was one of 10 Indigenous and academics of colour who wrote a researched letter with references and footnotes about the harm of racial tropes,” she said in a statement to Guardian Australia.
“What is missing in this is the question of power. We write letters on Google Docs to boards. The people who want to cancel us have premiers intervening.”
Since last Thursday, the South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has denied any direct interference, insisting the board acted independently.

We know that the mendacious Malinauskas was all in, and has stayed all in, and Friedman's appearance was just by way of a video link ... but it was passing strange is that the indignant and righteous Berg didn't bother resigning in relation to the Friedman matter ...

At the time, a group of 10 academics had signed a petition demanding Friedman’s removal due to a controversial column he had written in the New York Times days earlier, which compared the Middle East conflict to the animal kingdom. The Palestinian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, who was uninvited from this year’s writers’ week, was among the group.
When Friedman was notified, the academics were sent a letter by the board saying that requesting the cancellation of an artist or writer was an “extremely serious” issue.
“We have an international reputation for supporting artistic freedom of expression,” the letter signed by the board’s chair, Tracey Whiting, said.
“Thomas L Friedman was programmed to contribute online from New York. However, I have been advised that due to last-minute scheduling issues, he is no longer participating in this year’s program.”
Whiting resigned as the chair of the festival board on Saturday. Guardian Australia has been unable to reach her for comment.

Instead ...

Berg’s letter was tendered on 22 October to Whiting, South Australian arts minister Andrea Michaels and the Adelaide festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba.

“I cannot serve on a board which employs a director of Adelaide Writers Week (AWW) … who programs writers who have a vendetta against Israel and Zionism,” Berg wrote in his resignation email.

“That the director programs pro-Palestinians and anti-Zionists is well known. The Board has encouraged her to program writers who might have a different perspective. She resolutely fails to do so.”

He waited an unseemly amount of time to act ... and yet he claims to have seethed at the treatment of the malodorous Friedman.

Perhaps Polonius should have provided, or been provided, with a link to that malodorous Friedman NY Times outing...

Never mind the way that Benji cultivated that trap door spider, feeding it Qatar cash. Cf Le Monde ...

All that insufferable, insulting entyomology provoked a right royal fuss, and Friedman tried a tactical retreat and a half-baked wannabe apology ...

The miracle, considering Friedman's form, was that he was ever given an offer to visit that Moscow on the Torrens where maiden aunts sit on verandahs and croweaters fail to do olives the Don Dunstan way, but then the both siderist NY Times always dresses up its toads as important figures and keen pundits without any ideological bias (if the pond might continue the biological metaphor):

Thomas Friedman: Dehumanisation par excellence amid a genocide ...

Inter alia, from that AlJazeera opinion piece...

Say one thing for Polonius, at least he allowed the pond a chance to take a look at yet another disreputable NY Times figure ...

But in his final thrust Polonius invokes Sharri, and, despite offering full disrespect, the pond simply can't go there ...

As Elizabeth Pike reported in these pages on January 15, Abdel-Fattah was one of several high-profile figures who revealed personal details of 600 Jewish creatives. She commented at the time that the list provided “critical insight into how Zionists organise and operate in so-called progressive arts, academic and media spaces”.
Moreover, as Sharri Markson revealed on Sky News last Wednesday, when interviewed on the We Used to be Journos podcast on January 14 Abdel-Fattah declared that “Zionism should not be platformed”.
In announcing her resignation in The Guardian Australia on January 13, Adler opined that South Australia’s “tourism slogan could be ‘Welcome to Moscow on the Torrens’ ” – ignoring the fact that, from 2022, in Russia 30 journalists have been imprisoned, one of whom was killed. This makes Adler’s Adelaide/Moscow description somewhat delusional.
The same description can be applied to those who consider Abdel-Fattah a hero of the free speech cause.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

One of whom was killed?

The pond doesn't mean to discount the deeds of sociopathic Vlad the Impaler - by some counts he's up to 13 murders since taking charge and many more journalists have been forced into exile -  but Adler probably should have referred to Israel ... Gaza named deadliest place for journalists in 2025 RSF reports on dangers facing media globally ...

And with that cheery thought, time to close by celebrating the state of the disunited States ...

And here's that other summary: